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History | |
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United Kingdom | |
Name | HMS President |
Commissioned | 10 November 1903 |
Status | Currently operational |
Badge | |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Stone frigate |
HMS President is a "stone frigate", or shore establishment of the Royal Naval Reserve, based on the northern bank of the River Thames near Tower Bridge in Wapping and is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
The division consists of over 300 officers and ratings, making it the largest in the country. The division draws recruits from the city, as well as further afield. There is also a satellite unit in Chatham, the Medway Division. [1]
There had been a drill ship moored in London since 1 April 1862. This was the 58-gun frigate HMS President, berthed at the West India Docks and training ship of the local Royal Naval Reserve. They were joined in 1872 by the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers. This ship was named Old President on 25 March 1903, and was sold for scrapping on 7 July 1903.
This ship had been constructed in 1829 on the exact lines of the American 'monster frigate' USS President which was captured by the Royal Navy at the close of the War of 1812, and the name was deliberately retained in memory both of this capture, and also the 1806 capture of the French frigate Président which had served as HMS President from 1806 to 1815.
All the Old President's successors in the London RNR role have also been renamed HMS President, including HMS Gannet, HMS Buzzard, the Flower-class sloop HMS Saxifrage, and the present shore training establishment in St Katharine Docks.
With the passing of the Naval Forces Act by Parliament on 30 June 1903, the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve was created. The London Division was established on 10 November 1903 and held its first drill night at the Fishmongers' Hall. It then moved to the Doterel-class sloop-of-war HMS Gannet then moored in the Thames. The Gannet had been renamed HMS President on 16 May 1903. She served for nine years as the centre's home, until being paid off on 31 March 1911, and is now preserved in Chatham Historic Dockyard. She was replaced by HMS Buzzard, which had been serving as a training ship at Blackfriars since 19 May 1904. She took the name HMS President on 1 April 1911. This President served until 23 January 1918, when she was lent to The Marine Society, finally being sold on 6 September 1921.
It was intended to replace her with the Anchusa-class sloop HMS Marjoram, but she was wrecked on her way to being fitted out. She was instead replaced by her sister HMS Saxifrage, which was renamed HMS President on 9 September 1921. She was moored at King's Reach on 19 June 1922. She was joined in 1938 by HMS Chrysanthemum, which served as a drill hall and gave extra space for activities. HMS President was taken over in 1939 for the training of DEMS gunners and sailors. The Reserve division had been closed by April 1940. The division was reformed in October 1946 and continued to serve as the London base.
President took a number of roles and duties, one of which was to serve as the accounting base for Admiralty personnel. The Royal Navy section was transferred to a new section named HMS St Vincent on 15 September 1983. St Vincent was located in a building that had been purchased in 1954 as accommodation for WRNS. It was commissioned as an independent command in 1985 and was paid off on 31 March 1992. In the mid-1980s the River-class minesweeper HMS Humber was attached to the base. In 1988 both HMS President and HMS Chrysanthemum were sold and the division moved ashore, into a purpose-built training centre next to Tower Bridge overlooking St Katharine Docks. This had formerly been the site of the P&O London ferry terminal. HMS Humber was transferred away from the base in 1994.
HMS President has also sited some departments at a number of different locations onshore in the city of London. These have included:
There was also a branch, HMS Co President, established at Shrewsbury between 1944 and 1947.
As the unit developed, new departments were established and spun off, often taking up residency in buildings across the city. They retained the name President, but adopting a specific identifying numeral after it. They were:
Located both in London and Shrewsbury it was established as an accounting base, in operation between 1918 and 1928. It took over the accounting from the Stornoway based HMS Iolaire, which had closed on 19 May 1919. It was at the Royal Victoria Yard in 1939, and moved to Shrewsbury in September 1940. It returned to London on 6 July 1945, setting up operations at Chelsea Court. It took over some Naval Party accounts from HMS Odyssey when that office closed on 31 January 1946. The department remained operational between 1947 and 1957, seeing the merging into it of HMS President III and HMS Pembroke III.
This was another accounting base, based at times at Chatham, Crystal Palace, Chingford and Shrewsbury, and extant between 1916 and at least 1947. Also at Felixstowe in 1917. (Possibly also at Calshot and Bembridge during 1917.)
A third accounting base, this time alternately based at Bristol, Windsor and London. It covered the accounts of the active services of the Royal Fleet Reserve, the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and the Royal Naval Reserve from 1916 onwards, also extending to covering demobilisation accounts from December 1918 onwards. The Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship accounts were transferred to HMS Vivid on 1 October 1919. In August 1935, President III also took over the accounts of the Mobile Naval Defence Base Organisation.
It was re-established on 28 August 1939 in Bristol to train those allocated for service on the Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships. It was later transferred to locations across Windsor and London. By 31 May 1944 the command held over 30,500 accounts. The ledgers were closed after the war on 1 July 1946, and the accounts covered by President III and Pembroke III were merged into President I.
This was the London accounting base, in operation between 1918 and 1926, handling the accounts of the commands of the Coastguard ships and the Reserves.
Another London accounting base, initially set up in 1918 it covered a wide variety of accounts but was paid off on 30 September 1919 and the accounts were transferred to HMS Pembroke. It was recommissioned on 1 November 1941 as a training establishment for Accountant Branch Ratings. It closed on 14 July 1944 and its operations were moved to HMS Demetrius.
Also established in 1918, it handled transport service accounts, and from February 1919 was the base for the Murmansk tugs, whilst handling the accounts of officers assigned to Northern Russia. These accounts were transferred to HMS Lobster in July 1919.
Five ships and one shore establishment of the Royal Navy have been named HMS President, after the office of president meaning "one who presides over an assembly". In the case of the first two British ships, the name may have applied to the Lord President of the Privy Council.
HMS Caroline is a decommissioned C-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy that saw combat service in the First World War and served as an administrative centre in the Second World War. Caroline was launched and commissioned in 1914. At the time of her decommissioning in 2011 she was the second-oldest ship in Royal Navy service, after HMS Victory. She served as a static headquarters and training ship for the Royal Naval Reserve, based in Alexandra Dock, Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the later stages of her career. She was converted into a museum ship. From October 2016 she underwent inspection and repairs to her hull at Harland and Wolff and opened to the public on 1 July 2017 at Alexandra Dock in the Titanic Quarter in Belfast.
Eight ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Atalanta or HMS Atalante after the athlete in ancient Greek mythology.
Nine ships and two shore establishments of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Gannet, after the seabird the Gannet:
HMS President is a retired Flower-class Q-ship that was launched in 1918. She was renamed HMS President in 1922 and moored permanently on the Thames as a Royal Navy Reserve drill ship. In 1982 she was sold to private owners and, having changed hands twice, served as a venue for conferences and functions as well as the offices for a number of media companies. She has been moved to Chatham on the Medway in Kent since 2016, but is due to return to the capital. She had the suffix "(1918)" added to her name in order to distinguish her from HMS President, the Royal Naval Reserve base in St Katharine Docks. She is one of the last three surviving Royal Navy warships of the First World War. She is also the sole representative of the first type of purpose built anti-submarine vessels, and is the ancestor of World War II convoy escort sloops, which evolved into modern anti-submarine frigates.
HMSGannet is a Royal Navy Doterel-class screw sloop-of-war launched on 31 August 1878. It became a training ship in the Thames in 1903, and was then loaned as a training ship for boys in the Hamble from 1913. It was restored in 1987 and is now part of the UK's National Historic Fleet.
HMS Buzzard was a Nymphe-class composite screw sloop and the fourth ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name.
Lobnitz & Company was a Scottish shipbuilding company located at Renfrew on the River Clyde, west of the Renfrew Ferry crossing and east of the confluence with the River Cart. The Lobnitz family lived at Chapeltoun House in East Ayrshire. The company built dredgers, floating docks, fishing boats, tugboats and workboats.
HMS Diomede was a Danae-class cruiser of the Royal Navy. Constructed at Vickers Armstrong, Barrow, she was constructed too late to take part in World War I and was completed at the Royal Dockyard, Portsmouth. Between the wars, she served on the China Station, Pacific waters, East Indies Waters and from 1936 onwards, in reserve. In World War II she performed four years of arduous war duty, during which time she captured the crew of the German blockade runner Idarwald after she had chased that ship and when the crew scuttled Idarwald. Between 22 July 1942 and 24 September 1943 she was converted to a training ship at Rosyth Dockyard. In 1945 she was placed in reserve and scrapped a year later.
Five ships and a number of shore establishments of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Daedalus, after the mythical Daedalus:
Nine ships and a number of shore establishments of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Pembroke.
HMS Andromeda was one of eight Diadem-class protected cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the 1890s. Upon completion in 1899, the ship was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet where she helped to escort a royal yacht during its cruise through the Mediterranean Sea. After a refit, she was assigned to the China Station in 1904 and returned home three years later to be reduced to reserve. Andromeda was converted into a training ship in 1913 and remained in that role under various names until 1956. That year she was sold for scrap and broken up in Belgium, the last Pembroke-built ship still afloat.
HMS Chrysanthemum was an Anchusa-class sloop of the Royal Navy, launched on 10 November 1917. She received a Le Cheminant chronometer from the Royal Observatory on 15 May 1925. After service in the Mediterranean, in 1938 she became a drill ship with Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) and then the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR). She was sold in 1988 to private owners and subsequently scrapped in 1995.
HMS Pembroke was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 27 June 1812 at Blackwall Yard.
HMS Dauntless was a Danae-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was built by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company of Jarrow, launched on 10 April 1918 and commissioned on 22 November 1918.
HMS Brilliant was an Apollo-class cruiser of the British Royal Navy which served from 1893 to 1918 in various colonial posts and off the British Isles as a hastily converted minelayer during the First World War.
HMS Eaglet is a Royal Navy Reserve unit based in Liverpool. She is the main occupant of the Royal Navy Regional Headquarters in Liverpool, Merseyside. The base is also the home to a number of units, including: Royal Marines Reserve Merseyside, Naval Regional Command Northern England, Liverpool URNU, HMS Biter, HMS Charger, Sea Cadet Corps, and the Liverpool Royal Navy and Royal Marines Careers Office.
HMS Calliope is a training centre and 'stone frigate' of the Royal Naval Reserve, located in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear.
Rear-Admiral Sir Harry Hampson Stileman, KBE was a British Royal Navy officer who also served as Director of Dr Barnardo's Homes from 1920 to 1923.
HMS Nymphe was a Nymphe-class composite screw sloop and the fifth ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name. She was renamed HMS Wildfire in 1906, HMS Gannet in 1916, and finally HMS Pembroke in 1917, before she was sold in 1920.